Description
Book SynopsisThis book contains a range of original studies on one of the major challenges in Africa today: the controversial role of youth in politics, conflict and rebellious movements. The issue is not only the drafting of child soldiers into insurgent armies or predatory militias, as in Somalia, Sierra Leone or Congo, but, more generally, that of the problematic insertion of large numbers of young people in the socio-economic and political order of post-colonial Africa. Even educated youths are being confronted with a lack of opportunities, blocked social mobility, and despair about the future. African youth, while forming a numerical majority, largely feel excluded from power, are socio-economically marginalized, thwarted in their ambitions, and have little access to representative positions or political power.
Trade Review'The remarably contemporary case studies vary in theme and cover youth in East Central Africa and five nations on the hump of West Africa. R.M Fulton, Choice, June 2005.
Table of ContentsContents Illustrations vii Maps vii Tables vii Photographs vii 1 Being young in Africa: The politics of despair and renewal 1 Jon Abbink PART I: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON YOUTH AS AGENTS OF CHANGE 2 Towards a political history of youth in Muslim northern Nigeria, 1750-2000 37 Murray Last 3 Imagined generations: Constructing youth in revolutionary Zanzibar 55 G. Thomas Burgess PART II: STATE, CRISIS AND THE MOBILIZATION OF YOUTH 4 Clash of generations? Youth identity, violence and the politics of transition in Kenya, 1997-2002 81 Peter Mwangi Kagwanja 5 Re-generating the nation: Youth, revolution and the politics of history in Côte d’Ivoire 110 Karel Arnaut 6 War, changing ethics and the position of youth in South Sudan 143 Jok Madut Jok 7 Anglophone university students and Anglophone nationalist struggles in Cameroon 161 Piet Konings 8 Past the Kalashnikov: Youth, politics and the state in Eritrea 189 Sara Rich Dorman PART III: INTERVENTIONS: DEALING WITH YOUTH IN CRISIS 9 From generational conflict to renewed dialogue: Winning the trust of street children in Lomé, Togo 207 Yves Marguerat 10 Children as conflict stakeholders: Towards a new discourse on young combatants 228 Angela McIntyre 11 Warriors, hooligans and mercenaries: Failed statehood and the violence of young male pastoralists in the Horn of Africa 243 Simon Simonse 12 Reintegrating young ex-combatants in Sierra Leone: Accommodating indigenous and wartime value systems 267 Krijn Peters List of authors 297
